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Dec 20, 2018

Thursday, December 20th 2018 Frank Virzi

Theme: The Buck Starts Here: Slang terms for the mighty dollar bill head up five down entries, as the reveal explains:

35D. Highest price, and what five Down answers have: TOP DOLLAR. The dollar term is on the top of the answer, hence the need to have the themers running vertically, not horizontally.
3D. Uncovered, in a way: BUCK NAKED. Those Duluth Trading commercials have certainly had an impact, like them or not. That was the first thing I thought of when I filled this in.

6D. Grade-school formation: SINGLE FILE.

9D. Personal, as a talk: ONE-TO-ONE. I had one-ON-one first, that didn't work out so well.

31D. Political commentator who wrote "Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball": GEORGE WILL.

"Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona."

From New England to Old England, where I'm currently enjoying some typical British rain weather. Fun puzzle from Frank, the theme worked nicely and an absence of any "clunk" in the fill made for a smooth solve.

7. Browser button with a curved arrow icon: REFRESH. Ah, I've got one of those. I didn't see the HOME button last week, but my refresh button is right there.

8. Move in a tutu: PLIÉ.

10. Party pro: POL.

11. Monogram ltrs.: INITS.

12. Loosen, as laces: UNTIE.

13. Uxmal inhabitants: MAYAS. Important Mayan site on the Yucatan peninsula:

19. Five-O nickname: DANO. "Book 'em, Dano!"

21. "__ be an honor!": IT'D.

25. Work up a sweat: TOIL.

27. Altar words: I DO.

28. Treat with supreme care: BABY.

29. McFlurry flavor: OREO. I've never had a McFlurry. Do they do other flavors? Speaking of Oreos, I travelled to the UK with a roll-on sized bag full of Oreos and M&M's. My family are addicted to the more unusual flavors which they can't get this side of the pond.

36. +: PLUS.

37. Lowest price: CENT.

41. Songwriter with John: PAUL. Very few of the Lennon/McCartney songs were true collaborations.

44. Girl in a pasture: EWE.

46. Poison in some whodunits: ARSENIC.

49. Tight ends?: TEES.

50. Viet Cong org.: NLF. National Liberation Front.

52. Small earrings: STUDS.

53. Heaps: A SLEW.

54. "À __ santé!" : VOTRE. Cheers! To your good health!

56. Calf neighbor: TIBIA. One of your lower leg bones. A very close neighbor to your calf.

59. Persian Gulf capital: DOHA.

61. Mar-a-__: Florida estate: LAGO. Lago and Iago today.

62. Flip-flopped?: SHOD. Who was it who blew out a flip-flop? Ah yes ... Jimmy

64. Rosy: RED.

65. Gulager of "The Virginian": CLU. William Martin "Clu" Gulager to give him his full moniker. His nickname was given to him by his father, after the clu-clu birds, or martins, nesting at the family home.

That about does it for me. Time to find out if the rain has stopped! Here's the grid, and a picture of the old mill at dusk in Lower Slaughter, the charmingly-named village I'm staying in tonight (there's an Upper Slaughter as well!)

And finally the grid:

Steve

Notes from C.C.:

1) Hi Steve, hello from the other side!

2) Here are two pictures of Melissa's sweet granddaughter Jaelyn, who's going to be a big sister next year.

Jaelyn was a pink
flamingo for Halloween. you can see her black eye - she was accidentally
kicked in the face by an exuberant cousin just before
trick-or-treating.

48 comments:

After all the grousing about harder puzzles, this seemed like an ok to easier Thursday with no "unfair" clues. Or perhaps it was just things I know and I lucked out. I would guess maybe RIEL was the most obscure fill, but the perps were there. I did like seeing IAGO and LAGO in the same puzzle.

I have always admired DEREK JACOBI as an actor especially his tour de force I CLAUDIUS which for me is one of the best things ever done on television and a production shout out to Steve and the BBC.

Now to go read about the history of JARDINE MATHESON and what the 'ell it has to with RIEL .

Guess who didn't get the theme? Again. Yup. Same guy who didn't read the complete reveal clue. Again. REAL/RIEL, SANA/DOHA, and COST/CENT were my write-overs this morning. Nothing that couldn't be quickly fixed. Thanx, Frank and Steve.

CLAMBAKE: Strictly an east-coast phenomenon, methinks. That photo does look at lot like a Louisiana crawfish boil, complete with whole potatoes and corn-on-the-cob. I'm making myself hungry!

UXMAL: I can hear it now, "Uxmal! No hands!"

Acts charitably: Today I'm sending letters to three charities that received sizable donations in October, but failed to send confirmation-of-receipt letters. I need those letters to support my tax deduction.

True, this wasn’t a tough puzzle, but nonna was unfamiliar, and that caused a pause.

Morning Steve, hand up for needing to go read about Jardine Matheson.

Irish Miss from yesterday - if I recall correctly, you were the one who asked about updated photos of MBee’s adorable granddaughter. Well done, you! Thanks Melissa and C.C. for bringing us those nice images.

This had enough crunch to make it a bit challenging - though part of that I did myself. I also said ONE ON ONE and I filled in MUCKRAKED instead of BUCK NAKED early on- even though I knew that was more of a Fri/Sat answer! 78% right as Splynter used to say!

Thanks Steve for the fun write-up, and mini travelogue of the UK. What flavors of Oreos and M&Ms do they like? I haven't met a flavor I didn't like - but some of the weird seasonal oreo filling colors are not my favorite like bright orange!

I'm with D-O , the CLAMBAKE looks a lot like a Door County Wisconsin Fish Boil(substituting the clams of course).

This is my last day in the office until after Christmas- we are having Ugly Christmas Sweater Day - even though everyone else will be there tomorrow. Thanks for letting us know how you are Montana! Congrats on the grands- they are "adorbs" -wasn't that slang in last week's puzzle?

I've been to what were called CLAMBAKES (or clam steams) but not a real one, which involves building a wood fire on top of rocks, then burying the rocks with the clams under the sand for a couple of hours.

Easily solved except in the SW corner. I had PRIZE and ROZ at first, creating such an inkblot I couldn't see to continue. I went to online masters mode to clear that corner and easily found the answers without cheating. However, I didn't find the theme. Silly me was looking at the across fill instead of downs.Jaelyn is so cute.Montana, good to hear from you. Merry Christmas. Maybe our Corner techies can advise you about your posting problem.Uxmal and Derek were the only unfamiliar wordsBeing an ex kindergarten teacher (and later grades 1 through 5) Nonna reminds me of this book by Tomie dePaola, the classic, Caldecott Honor–winning story Strega Nona, Grandmother Witch.I have Italian friends who call their Grandma, NONNA

No serious stumbling blocks but a few unknowns, as clued: Mayas, NLF, and Bari. I, too, had One on One, at first, and Needle instead of Nettle. I liked the crossing of Hill and Will. Tibia was almost Texas because I read the clue as Calif, not Calf. Add geographically impaired to visually impaired. (Tibia brought back memories of that horrific fall on Christmas Day, 2013.) CSO to Jinx at Untie! Favorite C/A was Flip-flopped=Shod. Did any else notice (or care about) the plethora of O endings: Arco, I do, Tso, (Sell) to, Iago, Oreo, Lago, and Dano.

Thanks, Frank, for a fun and enjoyable solve and thanks, Steve, for the across the pond summary. Hope you're having a jolly good time in Merry Old England!

Thanks to CC and Melissa for the sweet pictures (Hi Dudley) of Jaelyn. (Her poor eye!) I'll bet she's excited about being a big sister. Congrats to all!

After they found Noah's ARK, the murderous NLF spent their last RIEL to sail to BARI to try and use their WATERGUNs to kill General TSO, they only found both NONNA and TIA Sophia BUCK NAKED. They yelled in unison-- SAVE ME. Then they set sail for the ETAT of 'Floride' hoping to reach Mar-a-LAGO and have the 'never Trumper' GEORGE WILL join them. Their nagivator wasn't too swift and they ended up in DOHA and that nasty SWEDE Nobel blew them out of the water. Let's just say, I'm NOT PC.

Good Morning VIET NAMese NLF. Not a hard puzzle but way too much foreign language. DEREK, IF HE, BARI, A VOTRE sante, were unknowns solved by perps.

Last I checked my leg, my TIBIA was IN my calf, not one of its neighbors. Leg areas- foot, ankle, calf, thigh. Agnes, TEXAS is not close to California.

YODEL- DW just told me that the girl who yodeled and sang CW won the Voice this week.GREAT Dane- real name---Deutsche DoggeSAVE ME- I also filled HELP ME before correcting it.

Agree with Lemon about it being on the easier side. Wanted bhat before RIEL became clear from perps. (I think bhat is Thai.) Much fresh fill; fun to work on.SWEDE - We saw Nobel's home from the boat tour along Stockholm's waterfront on the L. Mälaren side. Beautiful area.NETTLE - A NETTLE leaf is on the coat-of-arms of Holstein.DST - My Dad kept DST year round on his dairy farm. Extension of WWII DST. Better for the cows vis à vis milking time.ULTRASONIC - I had an ULTRASONIC procedure yesterday to confirm that an axillary mass was benign. Apparently a side result of a sentinel node removal 2 years ago. (See FLN.)SINGLE FILE - When our destroyer squadron would form up that way it was called column formation. If the ships stationed alternately left and right for better ahead visibility, it was called column open order. Not a good deployment for ASW.

I thought this was going to be hard and was surprised when it was all filled in. Thanks Frank the challenge. I had very few unknowns but my brain was slow to engage on some. YR, I also thought of Tomie de Paola’s Strega Nona. I also learned Cyanide has the same number of letters as ARSENIC.

I went to Duke and Chapel HILL was 7 miles away according to the highway sign. The sign in Chapel Hill said Durham was 12 miles away. I never did solve that little puzzle, and I’m not sure anyone else did.

Thanks Steve for the picture of the mongoose. Rikki Tikki Tavi is one of my favorites.

Thursday toughie. Thanks for the fun, Frank and Steve (have a wonderful time in the Olde Country!).This Canadian found this CW a little 66A and crunchy. Other people here may complain about too many sports, arts, language clues; I complain about too many American clues! So I will chalk my DNF up to my Canadian disadvantage today.Of course you all know that we have not BUCKs, CLAMs, SINGLEs, GEORGEs or ONEs; we have Loonies (and no CENTs!). (And RIEL was a Canadian politician and leader of the Red River Rebellion.)

I could not remember that West Coast gas, ARCO, although we have had it here before. Since BARI was also unknown, the R square was blank.In the south, WILL was unknown as was ACLU and CLU (I had another blank square where the U was needed.) I did figure out the Amerian Civil Liberties section but our Canadian version, CCLA, is called an Association.

Baste (thinking of turkey again) before BEDEW left me questioning how those Teas had tight ends!I had Ends before EBBS, and hand up for ONE on ONE before TO. My Nobel was a Prize before a SWEDE.I looked at the 5 blank squares for "Monogram ltrs." and wondered who had that many names to give a 5 letter monogram (royal family members maybe, eh Steve!) Lightbulb moment with INITS.

Smiled at "Flip-flopped=SHOD".I knew AnonT would know NONNA immediately. There are so many versions of Grandma, Grandpa, Oma, Opa, Poppa, Nana in the different languages. I must LIU to find the Italian word for Grandpa (NONNO?)

IM - I missed noting all those O words. I did see CLI and CLU, OPE and OLE.

Merry Christmas, Montana. Good to hear from you.d'otto- when I donate to charities online, I almost always get an immediate e-receipt. Some charities here wait until the new year and issue one receipt for the whole tax year. Saves them money (stamps) and they hope you will donate more than once!Great photo of the granddaughter, Melissa. Such excitement to have another grandbaby on the way!

Easy? You should see my newspaper crossword. Steve talked about ink-blot - mine looks like a horse, which I put in place of YODEL. Rorschach would be proud. Frank Virzi's puzzle made my mind dizzy. But I was glad to see that THE BIG EASY has taken over my old gig of making stories out of the words from the puzzle. Nonna and Tia Sophia buck naked? Translating as grandmother and aunt. I like my Swedes Muckraked, or sorry BUCKNAKED. Hand me that opium pipe and don't put any ARSENIC in it.Thanks to all you crazy bloggers, Merry Christmas! ...and stuff...

Well, like CanadianEh, I found this a little tough, but for me that's pretty normal for a Thursday. And the theme was clever and fun--so many thanks, Frank. Only I still don't get GEORGE as having to do with money? And I'm also still a little puzzled about what flip-flopped has to do with SHOD? I had a busy day yesterday, so am still a little tired this morning, I guess. Glad you're having a good time, Steve. And sweet pictures of Jaelyn.

This was a trip down memory lane for me. SINGLE FILE (teaching)BARI (a Canadian friend was born there)ARCO (we have it here but I don't use it)DEREK (he is a marvelous actor whom I've seen many times)IAGO (love some Shakespeare) Juliet, too.SWEDE (Sweden is a beautiful country I visited long ago)PLIE (my daughter and granddaughter had ballet lessonsBUCKNAKED, LOL! (what Steve said about those ads)TIA (my last living one is 94 years old)MRI (I remember being in that tube and it's not a good memory)

Sigh. Since I relate to Nana I misspelled NaNNA even though I've read the books mentioned above.

After filling TOPDOLLAR I looked for them and found them all on TOP!

Thank you, Mr. Virzi and Steve! Enjoy your holidays with your family.

C.C., thank you for posting Jaelyn's photo. It's great to know that those beautiful genes will continue to be passed on.

Fun puzzle, but I did not get the theme until I was almost finished! Hand up for MUCK RAKED before BUCK NAKED. I wonder if that was an intentional diversion? If so, it worked! Last area to solve to FIR!

Hand up NE was tough, too, with unknown NONNA. DEREK, CLU, IF HE, RIEL also unknowns.

From yesterday:Big Easy thanks for validating that you also have never heard ORT used in real life. Nor had you heard the CHEESE line in FARMER IN THE DELL.

AnonT I never saw Mork and Mindy, so I did not know about the Robin Williams rainbow suspenders. But I think I saw him once as a street performer in San Francisco in the late 70s. I assumed the tunnel rainbows were a gay pride thing. A learning moment that it was just a public works person trying to brighten the day of commuters!

As for the rocket launch with bad capacitors, the article does not say where it is supposed to happen.

BillG and AnonT yes, we have tried each time to catch the Vandenberg rocket launch. Most recently yesterday at 5:44PM. We will try again today!

desper-otto, Yellowrocks and Lucina thanks for the CHEESE and ORT observations!

The Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament started when Bing Crosby invited friends to play golf, enjoy a CLAMBAKE and a raise a little money for charity. For this reason, I associate a clambake with the west coast.

ARCO or Atlantic Richfield COmpany seems a misnomer for a "west coast gas acronym".

I was raTTLEd before NETTLEd and my thigh was my calf's neighbor. The clue seemed to call for muscle to muscle rather than bone to muscle.

Spending some time trying to be more computer literate. I’m signed in again. Now I’ll see if I can get by the loop of a dozen 'robot' screens!

I think I did it. Lemon, I was just in CT for the last 2 weeks of November, with family, then babysat in Denver, the first 2 weeks of December. I am now home in Montana with no travel plans for awhile.

Musings-Subbing today - I had a DVD player break down and had to scramble to get the videos shown. The kids were great while I fixed the problem-Then the admin. paid for and served a nice soup/salad lunch for staff and one sub!-I subbed in grade school once and had to learn how they have to LINE UP to go anywhere-Infidelity has run wild here with our middle-aged faculty pairing with younger teachers-James Michener of Hawaiian missionaries - "They came to the islands to do good, and they did right well."-Seniors I had yesterday thought it was stupid that some Christmas songs are suddenly NOT PC-Remember when we had “BABY” our cars to get them to start on a cold day?-Nice pix and write-up today!

An enjoyable puzzle. I stepped into all the same pitfalls that many of you did.

To clarify what California voters approved regarding Daylight Saving Time, the ONLY thing that the Proposition did was to allow the state legislature to decide DST start and stop times without requiring voter approval to do so. It did not make DST effective all year around; to do so requires an Act of Congress. Current Federal law does not allow any state to have DST all year around. If Congress does make a law allowing DST all year, then and only then can the state legislature opt for it if it wants to, without voter approval.

Well, I was BUCK-stupid and FILL-Stubborn in the NW leaving mUCKrAKER in place. I went to find the Italian port (so I could finally fix what's wrong) on Steve's grid and the first thing I saw was BUCK. Well, *UCK.

Thanks for the puzzle Frank - kept me company waiting for the dermatologist. (why do they set an appointment at 10:15 but keep you on ice for 30 minutes?)

Thanks for the expo during your Holiday Steve. Hope the rain lets up; but if it doesn't, just close your eyes and head to Margaritaville.

WO: Nv- b/f SELL TO showed up.ESPs: DEREK, VOTREFav: CSO to Pop's wife - NONNA (I'll have to call and see if she played today)

Calf, rather than being the whole lower leg, is just the fleshy back portion of the lower leg. It does not include the bones, so the clue is legit. Montana, I'm glad you are blue again. I missed your posts. You sure do travel.I made ginger boys this morning with a new recipe. I didn't care for them at first, but after sitting few hours, they are yummy. Spitz, it is great your ultra sound procedure showed benign results.I am going for an MRI in early January to see whether I need cervical spine surgery, which is most likely. I dread the long recovery period because I am on my own. The worst is not being able to drive. I can find work arounds for most things. I wonder how I will change my collar for showering. I raise a glass of wine to all my friends here. A votre sante. Happy holidays.

I got all the theme entries, but didn't think GEORGE was a money word. Guess it is, if you say so. His picture is on the bill.

DNK: RIEL, ARCO, DEREK, BARI, NLF, A VOTRE. Learning moments.

CLAMBAKE & earlier puzzle MUSSEL: my husband was leveling a field for flood irrigation years ago. The scrapers kept running into piles of MUSSEL or CLAM shells. The field was in the bend of a river where a creek ran into it. Lovely place that apparently had been a large Native American village & corn field. That would have been before more modern machinery tilled the soil and the silt in runoff killed whatever lived in those shells in the river.

WATERGUN: most successful birthday party I ever hosted was the one where nine little 6-7 yr.old boys received a WATERGUN and were shown the big water tank for refills on a hot Sept. day. Much running about and giggling from those little squirts.

Like B.E. I did the progression of foot, ankle, Thigh. The T stayed black to clue me into THIGH.

More bad news: my son-in-law had to have emergency surgery for a detaching retina then two more emergency surgeries on following days for tears. Daughter says his poor face looks like something out of a monster film with a prominent blood red eye. We hope the sight will be saved.

Melissa: Darling picture of Jaelyn. Where did you get that feathered flamingo outfit?

On your surgery, I would think you have access to post-operative home nursing or assistance as needed to do thinks like change dressing, assist with prosthesis, etc.………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

I have decided I do not like the automated blood-pressure cuffs that much of the medical community now uses. In the run up to get the systolic reading, way too much clamping is exerted on the arm IMO. Being on Warfarin exacerbates getting black and blue marks.Yesterday, when the nurse came in with the automated blood pressure unit, I very politely asked (BH was sitting next to me.) if she could do it manually with the cuff and bulb. She graciously did so and even asked my typical systolic reading so she wouldn't over squeeze the arm needlessly, She got a reading of 122/66 and we were all happy.

I had to perp in a lot of fill. I had just finished and hadn't thought out the theme when I got a request to take an abused woman to a safe house. Problem?(And only lemony will appreciate this) she needed to go to immaukalee. *

Does anyone else watch Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries? I just saw one that involved two feuding Italian families and they bandied the word NONNA, the grandmother, throughout the show. The grandfather was called NONNO. Too late for me, though. I could have used it this morning.